In the year 1000 AF (five hundred years after the ending of Final Fantasy XIII-2), Lightning wakes from her crystal sleep in the world of Nova Chrysalia, which is doomed to be destroyed soon. Bhunivelze - the god who created the fal'Cie deities - Pulse, Lindzei and Etro - chooses Lightning to be the Savior, a demigod figure destined to free the burdened souls of Nova Chrysalia and lead them into a new world set to appear when the old one ends. The souls of people not rescued by the Savior, including those who died before the release of Chaos, are destined to fade forever, as though they never existed.

・This will be Lightning's last game and will end with a happy ending. The game has just one ending.

・The first FFXIII was story driven, meaning that the story pulled the player along. FFXIII-2 was player driven, meaning players selected the story. Lightning Returns is World Driven, meaning players have to consider how they interact with the changing world.

I'll believe this when I see it (unless they're actually promising no more Dissida, Somethingsomethingryhthymandsomething, or promotional tie ins to shit like The 3rd Birthday).

Also I would say that FFXIII-2 was more 'paradox' driven than 'player' driven. Also the only real point where you can sequence break is early on and it involves hitting the brick wall that tells you to go back and do the things you just tried to skip over (not like you aren't strong enough to take said section immediately after you unlock it or that if the RNG rolls favorably you could end up with a minion that would help you bypass the challenge of the next section without missing a step; but then you wouldn't be getting enough of Squeenix's loving Caius Ballad).

・This will be Lightning's last game and will end with a happy ending. The game has just one ending.

Oh, cool. Way to drain any dramatic tension from your narrative right out the gate. Not only does this lessen my desire to read your story since you already spoiled it; but really 'happy ending' plus 'JRPG' just screams 'Oh look, a miracle!' all over again. XP

・The first FFXIII was story driven, meaning that the story pulled the player along. FFXIII-2 was player driven, meaning players selected the story. Lightning Returns is World Driven, meaning players have to consider how they interact with the changing world.

Yeeeeah...I don't buy it. Sorry SE; you're no Bethesda. And even they don't really deliver on anything more then 'your choices don't really effect the world outside of a few kilometers beyond where X event takes place'.

・The game is meant to be played and cleared multiple times. The volume is not such that it will take many tens of hours to clear once.

Sooo...short, piddly narrative with pointless 'what ifs' just to place the 'false reward replay value' card on the table? You already said the game has one ending. That pretty much kills the 'I want to play this again' factor.

・There are some times when helping someone will decrease the life of the world.

・Defeating some enemies and clearing some quests will increase the life of the world.

In other words; your game mechanics cancel each other out and the whole 'worry about making choices regarding effects on the world life span' is meaningless since any dilemma is negated by the fact that I can go kill 50 brown wolves and magically the world lives another day.

・This will be Lightning's last game and will end with a happy ending. The game has just one ending.

Oh, cool. Way to drain any dramatic tension from your narrative right out the gate. Not only does this lessen my desire to read your story since you already spoiled it; but really 'happy ending' plus 'JRPG' just screams 'Oh look, a miracle!' all over again. XP

・The first FFXIII was story driven, meaning that the story pulled the player along. FFXIII-2 was player driven, meaning players selected the story. Lightning Returns is World Driven, meaning players have to consider how they interact with the changing world.

Yeeeeah...I don't buy it. Sorry SE; you're no Bethesda. And even they don't really deliver on anything more then 'your choices don't really effect the world outside of a few kilometers beyond where X event takes place'.

・The game is meant to be played and cleared multiple times. The volume is not such that it will take many tens of hours to clear once.

Sooo...short, piddly narrative with pointless 'what ifs' just to place the 'false reward replay value' card on the table? You already said the game has one ending. That pretty much kills the 'I want to play this again' factor.

・There are some times when helping someone will decrease the life of the world.

・Defeating some enemies and clearing some quests will increase the life of the world.

In other words; your game mechanics cancel each other out and the whole 'worry about making choices regarding effects on the world life span' is meaningless since any dilemma is negated by the fact that I can go kill 50 brown wolves and magically the world lives another day.

You know where they're not going to have those clocks. Where you can't keep an eye on it without having to dive at least three menus deep (whereas Majora's Mask did the same thing except that it had a clock front and center that told you precisely what time it was).

This is the most pathetic feature touted for a videogame, ever. You know you've hit rock-bottom when you use an established character that is almost universally seen as vapid and useless, and have to explicitly tell everyone that they aren't as bad anymore. It'd be the equivalent of George Lucas rolling with "Jar Jar Binks has become a considerably more refined person" as a bullet point for hyping up the upcoming release of Star Wars: Episode II.

This is the most pathetic feature touted for a videogame, ever. You know you've hit rock-bottom when you use an established character that is almost universally seen as vapid and useless, and have to explicitly tell everyone that they aren't as bad anymore. It'd be the equivalent of George Lucas rolling with "Jar Jar Binks has become a considerably more refined person" as a bullet point for hyping up the upcoming release of Star Wars: Episode II.

At least Lucas had the decency to regulate Jar Jar to background fodder by the second movie (and like all of two scenes during Panda Bear's funeral just to cap off his worthless existence).

Adding time management to a series that never had it only worked in Majora's Mask because of the easy to access reset button. Timed objectives is what keeps me away from series like Atelier, and now Square Enix is basically saying I'll have to bring time management skills in order to finish the story I've invested about 80 hours into. It's like if Activision announced that in order to be successful in the next Call of Duty, you'll have to work on your RTS resource management and whatnot.